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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25057990">an unwinnable war</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/aquariumsdelight/pseuds/aquariumsdelight'>aquariumsdelight</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Homestuck</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Earth C (Homestuck), M/M, Nightmares, Time Shenanigans</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 00:53:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,829</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25057990</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/aquariumsdelight/pseuds/aquariumsdelight</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>He realizes that Karkat had to have remembered that date all this time and said nothing. Even when it became painfully clear why he’d come back from the future to steal a date from his younger self, Karkat never said anything. Never gave any hint that he knew he would never find a way to live forever.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Why?” But Karkat was still asleep.</em>
</p>
<p>  - just this once, everyone lives.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>53</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>an unwinnable war</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24517291">full of field and stars</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/epilogues/pseuds/epilogues">epilogues</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>hey all! i don't really write anymore but when i say i was moved to tears! i had to write a follow-up on this one and throw some light comfort into a pure hurt fic lol.</p>
<p>definitely make sure you check out the main fic before you read this one. in theory they could be read separately, but then you'd 1) be missing out a really great fic and 2) be slightly confused. hope y'all like it!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>There’s another silence. This one is long and filled with just as many things as before, but this time, it doesn’t ache against the back of Dave’s neck like the swing of a pendulum or the rotation of the world. It just sits, around and next to Dave and Karkat, like it’s framing a photo. The sun sinks lower and lower, all the way until it has no choice but to rise somewhere else, and that’s when Dave kisses Karkat, right in the spot where his first gray hair will later grow, and leaves the past.</em>
</p>
<p>When Dave comes back to the present, he feels the weight of a completed time loop slide off his shoulders. Something so small and persistent he’d gotten used to ignoring it, since he never knew how far in the future that Dave was from. But now he knows why, and a different weight takes its place.</p>
<p>He finds himself tracing the familiar steps back up the stairs, through the hallway, around the corner into their bedroom. Dave’s hand trails against the familiar devil’s ivy as his husband comes into view. The air is still, except when it’s sent shaking by Karkat’s deep breathing. Dave smirks.</p>
<p>He knows he shouldn’t, it’s not healthy and all that jazz, but Dave stands the images of the two next to each other; the younger, grumpier version who still had so many more nights ahead of him and the person he’s grown old with. They both share the same sleeping face and the same way they make his heart race, even after all this time.</p>
<p>Dave digs into the pillow nest until he reaches Karkat’s hand. If he was awake to see this? He’d be calling him a sap and to stop treating him like he’s oh-so-fragile. Probably start asking why he’d gone through his closet and picked out one of his ugliest sweaters when there were plenty of good ones. Were you trying to look like an old fart or were you just inevitably by the whims of fate doomed to look like you just got trampled by Troll Goodwill?</p>
<p>Dave finds himself holding back a half-chuckle, half sob. “You should see one more sunset.” He mumbles in the way Karkat used to hate, and he rests his forehead against his shoulder.</p>
<p>He realizes that Karkat had to have remembered that date all this time and said nothing. Even when it became painfully clear why he’d come back from the future to steal a date from his younger self, Karkat never said anything. Never gave any hint that he knew he would never find a way to live forever.</p>
<p>“Why?” But Karkat was still asleep.</p>
<p>- - -</p>
<p>There was almost too much sun for Dave to open his eyes, and for once, Dave and his sunglasses looked like he was at the right place. Flashes of scenes: the carapacians digging six feet deep, the venue chosen they’d chosen only a week earlier, himself standing at the podium.</p>
<p>“I-“ is all he manages to get out. The rows of friends and found family in the pew are already angry. Ravenous for blood, they start throwing anything they can reach.</p>
<p>“Why didn’t you go with him?” The mob finds crates of tomatoes and he finds himself quickly soaked. It’s in his eyes, his hair, he can’t see shit-</p>
<p>“What makes you deserve to stay?” Pulp smells like blood. All he can see is red, and more red, and Karkat’s -</p>
<p>- - -</p>
<p>Dave wakes up, covered in sweat and tears. He’s still by the bedside, although his hand is now more crumpled into a fist than it is on the mattress. Dave quickly checks his husband’s pulse, as he does every time he wakes up lately.</p>
<p>Weak, but still there. Dave drops his head softly onto the sheets with a sigh, because that was way too close.</p>
<p>His head turns to see himself in the mirror. In all of this, he’d forgotten to turn himself old again, and he could just how young they were then. The wrinkles were gone, along with the beard he’d grown out half-ironically. Perks of being a god tier for the rest of time eternal, you can scam your way into free solo tickets to the fountain of youth. Step right up, and you too can pull yourself back to a time where you never knew how good you had it-</p>
<p>Wait. What if he instead of pulling himself through time, he went into it?</p>
<p>Dave didn’t think. It’s the best lead they’ve had in decades. He closes his eyes and flicks his wrists without really knowing where he’s going, just following a feeling. A feeling that pushes past one person weaving through parallel space and into the very idea of time. Something that reminds him of dying on that quest bed years ago.</p>
<p>He watches as his vision goes black, and soon enough, so do the rest of his senses.</p>
<p>- - -</p>
<p>“Now this is a venue for Asshole Lovers Anonymous.” Dave says out into the wide-open chamber he was suddenly in, pitch black and yet also strewn with barely visible white lines. Some were cut, some were long, but most of them were woven and interconnected. Dave can only think of the spider web that had strewn itself against the window in their room a couple years ago, and the spider that looked like it was made of glass.</p>
<p>“I guess this means time really is my bitch. Not that you’re a bitch or anything, in case you take that personally. But also, maybe take it a little personally. The route to personal growth starts with admitting exactly when you’re being an bitch.” Nothing answered.</p>
<p>Dave walks towards the closest thread to him, and before he could reach out a hand, he already knows it belonged to him. This was his life. He could see the knots made in it, perfectly executed time loops in motion. It thrummed like a guitar chord in A minor.</p>
<p>When he touches it, it’s like he gains extra 300x vision; Dave can see straight into the fibers. Physical, mental, emotional, and there were more but to be perfectly honest he stopped looking when he reached physical. Dave’s heart races as he sees how the fabric twisted so he could move his physical body through time to match Karkat’s and more importantly, how it’d gone back the other way so he could match Karkat once more.</p>
<p>How he’d become young again.</p>
<p>Dave’s mind froze. If he could do this, <em>if he could actually pull this shit off</em>, this would change everything.</p>
<p>He didn’t even have to trace his thread for long before he finds Karkat’s. It was frayed and close to snapping. It wove its way around Dave’s for as far as Dave can see before splitting off in a different direction far at the beginning. On a better day, he might trace it to see exactly when that was.</p>
<p>Dave presses into Karkat’s thread, spots into that physical string, and rewinds.</p>
<p>Dave leaves him just around his early thirties. He remembers this Karkat, just a few months after he’d gotten that terrible haircut from a studio that’d opened up down the street. He was so mad he’d refused to go anywhere without a beanie and anyone who questioned it was fair game.</p>
<p>Dave had made his fair share of japes, of course. But he also got to pull him in close mid-rant and tell him he loved him.</p>
<p>Something <em>weird </em>starts pulls at him the longer he stays in there, like spider legs closing in, and Dave wasn’t waiting around to figure out what it was. He opens his eyes.</p>
<p>“Ugh…my mouth tastes like soap.” Dave hears from next to him.</p>
<p>Dave looks up to get hit with fondness like a shotgun to the chest. It’s both like he never left the past and is firmly in the present: Karkat with his impenetrable bedhead and a matching sweater hanging from his frame, is sitting straight up and staring at his hands, which he used to wipe at his mouth.</p>
<p>“What! What the fuck! I-” Karkat throws off the heap of sheets to reveal legs swimming in pants made for someone bigger than him, and hiked up to his waist. Or maybe they were up to his stomach. Dave couldn’t see clearly right now to a very serious case of bawling his eyes out.</p>
<p>“It worked. Holy shit, it fucking worked.”</p>
<p>Karkat’s face (his young, practically baby face) was stuck in confusion, until it twists into understanding. He looks Dave up and down, who still looked like he’d just walked out of the park. Before Dave knew it, he was wrapped in his arms. Oh man, he was never going to stop crying was he.</p>
<p>“I love you so much.”</p>
<p>“I love you too Dave but-”</p>
<p>Oh. Of course. Of <em>course</em>- why didn’t he consider that maybe Karkat was the one who was done? It’s his life. Not that he’d taken even half a second to consider that maybe he was ready to move on. Dave tried not to collapse out of the hug, but his arms were giving out before he could tell them not to. He looked down at the carpet.</p>
<p>“If you want to go back to, you know, I understand. I get it. It’s, actually you’re right. It’s selfish of me to want you for longer. Fuck, I even got to go back and see you and I still wanted to see if I could get one more ride on the” That’s a long but sharp chittering noise, a popular Dave interrupter that clearly still did the job.</p>
<p>“Dave, <em>please</em> shut your talkblaster.” Karkat had his hands over his face and Dave couldn’t help looking at how the sleeves pooled at his forearms instead of reaching over his wrists. His lips might be zipped but eyes were NASCAR Cup drivers with the way they were racing over every inch of his husband’s new/old body.</p>
<p>They sat there for a moment in silence, weighed with the thoughts buzzing in both of their minds.</p>
<p>Karkat let out a deep breath, signaling the end. “Listen, I was going to ask you how this happened.” He spread his arms out wide and then motioned to his torso.</p>
<p>“Why would I be mad? Listen, Dave…” Now it was Karkat who turned away.</p>
<p>“I wasn’t ready. I got used to it, I fucking had to. There was nothing either of us go do about it and complaining to you wasn’t going to make you feel any less guilty, and <em>I know</em> you felt guilty about it Dave, don’t deny it. We spent all this time preparing for it, but still, I never wanted to die! I don’t want to die.”</p>
<p>Karkat finally looks up and grabbed Dave’s hands painfully tight. For once, neither of them needs to say anything else.</p>
<p class="pesterlog"><span class="dave">turntechGodhead [TG]</span> began pestering <span class="rose">tentacleTherapist [TT]</span>

</p>
<p class="dave">TG: you’re not going to fucking believe this</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>comments and critique are always welcome! i tried my best to make it a natural flow from the OG :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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